McIlroy admits golf really does matter: "Sometimes I maybe use that as a way to lessen the blow if I don't play good golf"

Jon Rahm. Picture: Getty Images

Rory McIlroy believes he's the best player in the world on his day, but after slipping from first to 14th over the past 15 months, he admits it's getting harder for the top dogs to dominate the rest.

Nobody has won more than five events in a PGA Tour season since Tiger Woods claimed six in 2009.

"I think when I play my best, I'm the best player in the world," McIlroy said ahead of the first start of his 2021-22 campaign in the $9.75 million CJ Cup in Las Vegas, where Shane Lowry also returns to action.

"Haven't played like that for a while, though, but I don't feel like I need to go that far back to whenever the pandemic hit [15 months ago], I was the No. 1 player in the world.

"Obviously, the last 18 months haven't been what I've wanted them to be, but if you keep it in perspective, I'm not that far away. So, yeah, it's not the position I want to be in, but at the same time, there's so many other guys that are trying to do the same thing as I'm doing and I realise the competition gets tougher each and every year."

McIlroy insisted he's not too hard on himself but too easygoing and those claims about golf not being the most important thing in life and that having balance was key were just pressure deflection tools, as his Ryder Cup tears revealed.

“I don't necessarily get that emotional about golf, so I guess in that way it surprised me,” he said of his emotional meltdown at the Ryder Cup. “But I think it was a good thing for me. I think I maybe realised a couple of things about myself that I hadn't, or maybe I had known but I was maybe trying to keep down and not let them out

“I was surprised at how emotional I got, but then after a little bit of reflection over the last couple of weeks, I sort of realised why I did get that way.

"I try to play it off with, you know, golf doesn't define me, and I've got balance in my life, and I'm happy away from the course, and that's obviously very true. But if I'm honest, sometimes I maybe use that as a way to lessen the blow if I don't play good golf."

While he won the Wells Fargo Championship this year to give himself the option of starting 2022 in the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, he revealed a conversation with Dustin Johnson that illustrated how tough it is to win nowadays.

"It's funny, I had breakfast with him this morning and I said, 'Oh, are you going to start in Maui like you usually do?' He said, 'I'm not in.' I was like, 'Oh, sorry.'

"DJ's the second-ranked player in the world and he didn't win on Tour last year. It just shows you how tough it is. The seasons of sort of 10 wins like Vijay and Tiger obviously multiple times, maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't know if we're going to see them again."

Johnson (37), who won five points from five in the Ryder Cup, admitted he'd love to be US captain someday.

"I think it would be fun," he said. “I think I would be a good captain. Yeah, it's something that I definitely would like to do at some point. I feel like I would let the guys just do their thing. I think that's most important.

"The players are very good, I don't need to tell them how to play a golf course or tell them what to do, but just put them in the situation where they can succeed."

McIlroy believes world No 1 Rahm, who won twice in the US in 2021, might have the potential to put together a five or six-win season

But the Spaniard is not in Nevada but looking to make up for his failure to complete a hat-trick of Spanish Open wins last weekend by claiming the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters at Valderrama where he was runner-up to Christiaan Bezuidenhout in 2019.

"As a Spaniard, it's a golf course where we all want to win," Rahm said in Cadiz, where Jonathan Caldwell is the lone Irish entrant. "It's extremely difficult. It's a golf course where, on a perfect day, 80 degrees no wind, if you shoot under par, it's a good score."

Spanish Open winner Rafa Cabrera Bello added: "It's almost like the Augusta of Europe. It is one of the most intimidating, if not the most intimidating golf course I've ever played. Shots don't need to be good, they need to be perfect."

There are just three events remaining on the Challenge Tour and 32nd ranked Michael Hoey and 88th ranked John Murphy tee it up in the Empordà Challenge looking to make the top 20 in the Road to Mallorca standings who will be awarded European Tour cards.